


Obvious Child

by MooseFeels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bakery, Cancer, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Half Brothers, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Major Character Death is Mary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-30 07:16:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5155064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His whole life, it was just Dean and his mom.<br/>It's weird how Dean's family gets bigger once his mom dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean’s holding her hand because he can’t let go of her, especially now, so close to the end.

She’s laying on the bed, smaller than he’s ever seen her in his life. She’s been small for weeks now, months, actually.

The past six months have been-

She turns over, in the bed, her eyes cloudy and tired. Terribly, awfully tired.

“Dean,” she murmurs, her voice cracking around the word, around the exhaustion of it. “Dean, baby, don’t hate me. Don’t hate me, okay? I’m sorry, but I did what I had to, to keep you safe and healthy, you know that?”

“Mom,” Dean says, holding onto her hand. “Mom, I’d never hate you. I love you- I love you so much. This isn’t your fault- I love you. I love you so much. I love you, Mom.”

“I did it to keep the house and put food on the table. I did it because I love you- I love you so much. Don’t hate me, baby, don’t hate me.”

They warned him that the pain would make her less lucid, that she would start slipping away, here towards the end. It’s still hard to watch. Hard to see.

“I love you, Mom,” Dean says. “I love you.”

Her eyes slip closed.

It’s the last thing she says to him, before she finally dies.

Ovarian cancer.

* * *

The funeral is three weeks past when Dean finally starts going through the house.

He throws out the trash and cleans out the fridge, not that there’s much in there to begin with. He’s fine until he goes into the closet, where all of her clothes hang up. They smell like her, still.

Dean sits down on the floor and closes the door. Closes his eyes and just- drifts in the smell of her.

Mom was all he had. There was never a dad and never anyone else. Just the two of them, against the world.

A few months ago, she went to the doctor. Routine.

And now she’s gone.

Benny gave him a few days off at the bakery to do this, to sort this out, but it’s so difficult.

The house is his now, and the thing is, there’s so much perfectly good clothing in here, surely someone will want it and use it, but he’s not ready to let go of it yet. To start believing that his mom doesn’t live here anymore. That she isn’t here anymore.

He wishes he weren’t alone in this but- but here he is.

He leaves the closet, for another day. Another time. So he goes over to the desk, in the kitchen, where there’s an envelope, with her neat, tidy cursive labeled Dean.

He thought maybe she wasn’t lucid, there at the end.

But now, he’s not so sure.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sam wakes up and stretches. He rolls out of bed and brushes his teeth and throws on his clothes and runs his hands through his hair before he threads it up with a ponytail holder. He grabs a granola bar out the door, kissing his mom on the cheek. He’s got work this morning at the bookstore; he needs to get in early to count the register and run an eye over the stock before people get there. It probably won’t be too busy- Wednesday morning- but it’s a college town and the mid-November push of visiting parents is probably well under way. He doesn’t really keep track of the schedule for the local university too great- he’s at a community college and living at home while working.

He hops onto his bike and dashes around up the hill, down the street and around the corner to the strip where the shop is. He goes through the back door and flips the lights on. Jams his phone into the speaker system and sets something to play. He whistles along a little bit as he goes about his day’s work.

At nine, he opens the store and stands at the counter with a copy of Witchcraft & The Papacy, sold back to the shop from some kid taking a mid-level history course. Sam’s not quite focusing right to take the information in the right way- he didn’t take his pill today and he’s comfortable letting the few things from the book that catch him right filter through.

A couple of people come in- no one terribly important or troubling- and then Gabriel comes in at noon. Their shifts overlap by an hour, a blatant piece of favoritism on Gabriel’s part. He’s manager of the store, and he likes to see his boyfriend (so sue him). They eat lunch together, and at one Sam hops back onto his bike and goes to his classes. He’s got intro composition and then algebra and then he goes home for dinner.

It’s not super exciting or anything, but Sam’s twenty and he feels like his life is finally getting on track.

So he comes home today and drops his bag upstairs with his notes and homework and he changes into his sweatpants and a comfy shirt and he helps his mom cook dinner.

“You got a phone call, while you were out,” she says. “Someone named Dean? Anyone from California?”

Sam shakes his head. “Never heard of him. Probably a wrong number or something,” he replies. “How was the office?”

She shrugs, absently. “I don’t know what we’re going to do if animal control doesn’t get their shit together,” she murmurs. “I swear, I spend more of my time trying to make their shit make sense that I do taking care of any other part of the city.”

Sam smiles, chopping the onion and tossing it into the sautee pan with the garlic and ginger. He lets the onions sweat for a few more minutes before he tosses in the green beans.

“Is Gabriel coming?” She asks.

Sam shakes his head. “Is Castiel coming?”

Ellen nods. “He’s had a rough couple of days, needs some family time,” she answers. “Throw some almonds in at the end of that, okay? He’s still eating vegetarian and probably not getting enough calories.”

Sam grins. “He’s a grown man, mom,” he jokes.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from the two of you,” she sighs, “it’s that neither of my sons is good at taking care of themselves yet.” She shakes her head and pulls out the chicken from the fridge, which had been brining. “And neither of you can get haircuts to save your life,” she murmurs.

Sam laughs.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“What?” Benny asks.

“I’ve got a brother,” Dean answers. “Or- a half brother. Mom- mom apparently sold her eggs a long time ago but she- after her diagnosis she got the information from the service to track the guy down. He’s younger than I am by a few years or something and-” Dean stops. He sighs, grits his teeth. He throws the dough against the counter. “Just- fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know why I want to see this guy, okay. Shit’s just fucked, okay?”

Dean presses further into the dough, already beginning to resist his pressure. He throws it a couple of times, letting it slap against the counter.

“I think she felt bad about it,” he says. “I think she thought that I would- she thought that I would hate her for it. But I remember when I was little, there were those months right as the plant was closing and things were so tight and I think that’s when it happened- I don’t know. She told me we almost lost the house a few years ago and I know that the money for that can be pretty good so I mean- I don’t blame her for it or anything. I can't blame her for it.”

He tosses the dough back into a bowl and sticks it into the proofing oven, for its first rise.

“Okay,” Benny says, “but what are you going to do now?”

“I called but he wasn’t there,” Dean says, “someone else answered the phone, probably his girlfriend or something. And I just didn’t know what to say so I left my name and that was it.”

“Okay,” Benny says, cutting the cinnamon buns into individual buns, “but what are you going to do now?”

Dean pulls a disc of chilled cookie dough out of the fridge and begins to roll it thinner and thinner.

“She wouldn’t have told me if she didn’t want me to know or- or want to do something about it,”  he answers. “I don’t know. I guess I have to talk to him or something.”

“Damn, kid,” Benny says. “Well, I know that there are other people who could take the hours for a week or so if you need more time to get shit together.”

“He lives in Washington,” Dean says. “Middle of nowhere.”

“Dean, we live in Kansas,” Benny murmurs. “I came from the Bayou to Kansas okay- we have no stones to throw with regards to living in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m here today,” Dean says. “Lemme handle today and I’ll take care of tomorrow if it happens.”

* * *

 

It’s Saturday, which means Sam doesn’t have classes and Gabriel gives him the day off. So he sleeps in and stays at home, waking up around ten to rake the leaves and chop some firewood. It's November now, winter already fast approaching on the heels of a chilly and wet Halloween. Sam loves the winter. He loves the rain and the cold grey skies, the long nights  and cloud-rich mornings.

He steps into the kitchen to throw together a sandwich when the phone rings.

“Hello?” He answers. “Sam Harvelle speaking.”

There’s a pause, weird and loaded. “Hello?” he repeats. “Are you there? Is this another prank call from Kevin because-”  
“I’m Dean,” the voice on the other end answers, “Uh, Dean Winchester. I’m uh- I’m calling because- because uh-”

“Could you speak up?” Sam asks. “I can’t quite hear you.”

“I’m your half brother,” he says.

“What?” Sam asks. “Kevin this isn’t-”  
“My name’s Dean Winchester,” the voice continues. “I’m a baker in Kansas, where I’ve lived my whole life. My mom- uh, Mary Winchester- sold some of her eggs in the eighties to make ends meet and uh- one of them- is uh- well, you.”

“I’m- what?” Sam asks, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I think you have the wrong number or something, I don’t know-”

“I have the paperwork, if you want to see it, I could email it to you or something,” he replies. “She just- I think she wanted me to meet with you. Or she wanted- I don’t know. But I wanted to tell you that- that I’m out here.”

“I- I’m sorry,” Sam says, and he hangs up.

He looks at the phone for a long time.

He dials the number.

“Mom?” He says. “I have a few questions.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm taking some liberties with the science of egg donation here. It first happened successfully in 1983 but became more widely available in 1984. Sam's a little younger (born later in the eighties) in this and it's a few years ahead of 2015. I've thought of it; don't worry about it.


	4. Chapter 4

Ellen Harvelle sits at the head of the table, with Sam at once side and Castiel and Jo at the other. Sam can’t really bear the thought to look at any of the three of them. Sam can barely stand to be in this room.

“What-” Sam begins. “What happened?”

“We were young, when Castiel was born,” she says. “A little under a year into our marriage, your father and I. We were blissfully happy- overjoyed by the possibility to have a child. And when Castiel was born, we were so happy. And Castiel- he got a little older, and we knew we wanted another baby. So we tried. And we tried and we tried but- but something was wrong.” She pauses for a moment. “We tried fertility treatments- hormones and everything. Your father changed his diet and exercised and changed his boxers. But eventually, we learned-we figured out that the problem was me. But we wanted another baby, so badly. We wanted a little sister or brother for Castiel- your father and I knew that we wanted a big family, we wanted more. So- so we did something a little out there. There was a new technology and it seemed like an incredible idea. An opportunity. We were going to have a baby and the baby would grow inside of me and be ours. We’d use your father’s sperm and a donated egg and- and nine months later-” She sighs. She turns to Sam, her eyes a little damp. “Nine months later, we got you.”

Sam shakes his head, fervently. “Why didn’t you just adopt, like you did with Jo?”

She shrugs. Shakes her head. “We had been trying. We just- we thought that this was the solution, the answer to all our prayers. We had been so dead set. I can’t really explain the mindset we had been in, we’d been trying, Sam. We’d been trying for so long and it just became everything we focused on.”

He looks at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t ever seem like something you would need to know,” she replies. “We didn’t think that anyone would ever contact you. We would have talked to you about it if we thought that there would be more- we talked to Jo about it and made sure she knew he options- we always did this. We thought the process would be different. You were always _ours_ , Sammy, no one else's, no matter where the ingredients came from.  We were so  _happy_. We were beyond happy. We were ecstatic. You were - you  _are_ our...your father called you our miracle of science.”

“What do I do...now?” Sam asks.

“That’s up to you,” she answers.

Sam stands up. “I need to go- take a walk or something,” he says. He grabs his keys and slips out the door.

He lets his feet carry him, around the block, already dark in the post-daylight-savings evening. The mid-evening fog has rolled in, blurring the light of the streetlamps into a soft kind of haze.

He did something similar after the accident, after the hospital, after she died.

Sam likes to walk. He likes the way the physical action places his brain in the soft, unthinking space and lets his body take over. He lets his legs and feet take him slowly, steadily away.

Leaving is what Sam is good at, and right now, he needs to leave this problem, to exist in a floating space of nowhere and nowhen.

He has a half-brother. In Kansas. A baker.

A half-brother.

Does that mean he has another Mother? And father? Does he have more half-siblings? A half-sister in law and little half-nephews and half-nieces?

Does he have to _talk_ to them? Does he have to talk to this stranger with so much blood in common?

What is he going to do?

What is he supposed to do?

He misses Jess. He loves Gabriel, honestly, but this isn't something he can give to him, this is so big and personal and weird. 

Why didn't they  _tell_ him?

What is he going to  _do_?


	5. Chapter 5

Dean’s phone rings at three am. He turns over in bed and looks at it, the small screen bright in the darkness of the bedroom. The noise of it is piercing and sharp. He glares at it, from under the blankets, and on the fourth ring he picks it up.

“Winchester,” he answers, sighing heavily.

“Hi,” a voice says on the other end of the line. “I’m uh- I’m Sam? Harvelle? Your uh- your half brother.”

Dean sits up in the bed. “Yeah,” he answers. “Yeah, I’m Dean. Hi. Hello.”

Neither of them say anything for a long, still time.

“Why did you call me?” Sam asks.

Dean waits for a second, trying to find the comfortable way to say an uncomfortable thing. “My mom died, recently,” he says. “I guess, uh, our mom. It was- it was cancer and she had a few months to kind of...get it together before she went. And I guess she looked up you and...I guess she wanted me to meet you.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Dean answers.

More silence.

“Look, it’s three am here, do you have more questions or-”  
“Can I meet you? Or- that is- can you meet me?” Sam asks, diving forward. His voice is rushed, impulsive.

Dean pauses. Waits.

“Can I think about?” Dean answers.

“Yeah,” Sam replies. “Yeah. Totally. Sorry I just- sorry.”

“It’s fine, It’s just three am and I need to sleep more before I figure out if I’m going to drive halfway across a continent,” Dean says.

“You could fly,” he answers. “I’d buy you your ticket.”

“I don’t do planes,” Dean says. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Sam repeats. “Yeah- sorry. Goodnight.”

“Night,” Dean replies, hanging up.

He lays back in bed.

He doesn’t fall back asleep until dawn.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Sam goes to work and he thinks about the phone call. He thinks about it as he pushes books onto shelves and runs the register and helps customers. He thinks about it while he eats lunch, letting Gabriel talk and talk and talk, nodding a few times.

“Kiddo,” Gabriel comments, midway through Sam taking a bite. “what’s going on with you? You seem out of it.”

Sam looks up, at his boyfriend. Nervous. Unsure. “Uh,” he says, “I got some kind of weird, personal news, a couple of days ago. Everything is weird.”

Gabriel’s brow creases. “What’s up?” He asks. “Your mom okay? Jo? Cas?”

“Uh,” Sam, repeats. “Uh- I’m- I have a half brother, I guess.” He answers, awkwardly. This is one of the things Sam likes about Gabriel. He can be so fumbling and uncomfortable and strange with him. “I got a call, a few days ago, and Mom more or less confirmed it so...yeah.”

“I thought that your mom and dad had been together pretty much...forever,” Gabriel says.

“They were,” Sam replies. “Apparently, they had fertility problems and I’m from a donated egg from someone in Kansas or something. I guess they moved here before I was born.”

“And you let me sit here for twenty damn minutes and talk about Krista the bitch who stole my parking spot?” Gabriel demands. “What the hell, baby?”

Sam smiles at him, reflexive. “It’s just...a lot,” Sam answers. “And I know that we’re doing what we’re doing with...boundaries. I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Gabriel grimaces, his face going tight. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay, fair enough. But like, if you want to talk more about this, that’s fine. I just...I know it must be kind of lonely”

“I mean, I get why she never told me- I get that it never came up, it’s just….what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do with this information? And I offered to buy him a plane ticket to fly him up to meet but I don’t know if it would be worse if he took it or if he didn’t take it.” Sam pokes at his salad, back and forth, and then he says, “And I can’t talk to Mom about it because she just feels so bad about it and I’m angry but I’m not sure how to talk to her about being angry without her feeling worse and I just don’t know how to talk to Cas or Jo about it- I just don’t know. You’re right, I mean, it is lonely.”

Gabriel reaches forward, over the desk, and takes his hand. Smiles at him, a little loosely. Pained.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Dean hates flying.   
Benny gave him a prozac that he had left over from some dentistry he had done forever and a day ago, and it’s just enough on Dean’s system to prevent him from having a full blown  _ attack _ , but he’s panicking, pretty seriously during takeoff, trying to keep his heartbeat down and his breathing steady.

He hates this. 

He hates that he called this guy back, that he let him buy him a ticket, that Benny gave him the time off, that he’s on a plane, that he’s going to  _ Washington _ , up north in the middle of nowhere, that this is happening, that any of this is happening. 

Mostly, he wishes his mom was still alive.

Why did she want him to  _ know _ . 

It’s six hours from Topeka to Seattle- mercifully he’s flying direct (but regrettably on a red-eye) and then apparently there’s an hour and a half drive to the ferry terminal and then there’s a ferry- one damn thing after another. He’s looking at about nine hours a travel total and he’s less than two in already into it now and he’s already regretting doing this. __

* * *

 

Sam’s at the airport- he borrowed Gabriel’s truck to make it out here so that Mom can still go to work and come back on her own schedule without having to ask for a ride home from someone she works with (or that works for her). The truck is old- built in the late seventies. It gets gas mileage like an aircraft carrier, but it has that caramel and carrots smell of Gabriel to it and that aching, familiar comfort as a place where his boyfriend inhabits, where he’s inhabited with him. 

Gabriel couldn’t make it- couldn’t afford to close the shop for the afternoon and they’re really the only employees. 

So it’s just Sam here, in the airport waiting area, holding a sign. 

He’s nervously taken his hair in and out of its bun over and over. He’s bitten his nails to the quick and gnawed on his bottom lip until it’s raw. 

_ Dean Winchester _ , is what the sign says. Sam’s checked the name on the flight manifest a dozen times now, to see if its right. 

There’s a man with short cropped blonde hair; his skin looks like its normally a little tanned but he looks pale and worn and nervous. He’s deeply bowlegged and he has a duffle bag thrown over his shoulder.

_ Is that him _ ? Sam wonders, watching him scan the crowd.

He pulls a flip phone out of his pocket, dials a number, and seconds later, Sam’s own phone vibrates.

Sam approaches him. “Hi,” he says. “Are you...Dean?”

* * *

Dean looks over the people at the receiving area and he sees the guy and his first thought is  _ please god not this guy _ .

But then when he dials his number, it’s precisely that guy.

He’s tall, for one. Dean’s no slouch at six two but this guy is  _ taller _ than that, truly enormous. There’s muscle swelling under his skin, which is more deeply complected than Dean’s own, and he has long brown hair that has been insufferably tied up into bun high up on his head. He’s got a v-neck tee shirt on and a hooded jacket- no coat, despite the fact that the weather predictions for this area say it’s supposed to be fifty degrees and raining. 

But he smiles when he approaches Dean and his surprisingly high, clear voice sounds sincere when he says, “Hi, are you...Dean?” 

He hesitates before the name the barest amount, just enough to belay a kind of nervousness.

“Are you Sam?” Dean asks, and the guy nods. 

He gestures toward the doors. “Do you have bags? We can go to the baggage carousel or-”   
“Just this,” Dean says, shrugging against his bag. 

“I’ve got a truck in parking,” he says. “It’s not too far to Anacortes and if we hustle we should make an early ferry.”

Dean notices immediately that the winter air here is  _ wet _ , instead of dry and that all of the trees, the few Dean can see while walking from the terminal to parking, are still green and alive instead of dried and sleeping through the winter.

It’s a deeply, deeply alien place.

The truck, though, is familiar- a lot like the one that Benny has with a huge square cab, high up from the ground. 

“Nice ride,” Dean comments, offhanded as he tosses his bag into the cab and climbs in. 

“Thanks,” Sam-  _ this stranger _ \- replies. “It’s my...it’s my boyfriend’s.”   
They pull out from the airport and ease onto the highway, which is crushed with traffic. There’s some silence there before Dean says, “So uh... you’re gay?”   
“No,” Sam replies, his brow furrowing a little. “I’m actually bi. Why- that a problem?” 

There’s a defensive quality to his voice, as if he’s already been in the schoolyard fights about this. 

“Nah,” Dean answers. “I was just...wondering? What we might or might not have...in common?”

More silence, driving through the city, against the rain.

“I’ve never done this before,” Dean says.

Sam huffs a short laugh at that. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, me neither.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

“Aren’t you fuckin’ cold?” Dean asks, beside him in Gabriels’ truck. He’s leaning aganst the window, his arm pressed against the glass, comfortable in the machine the way Gabriel is comfortable in the machine. 

Sam shakes his head. “It’s like this for about ten months out of the year, really,” he says. “Rain coats and umbrellas are for tourists. Do you have any wool? We could stop by a Goodwill and get you a sweater.”

“I’ve got something from an army surplus store,” he answers. His voice is gruff, like everything else about him. Sam can’t help but get the feeling that everything about that is an act, though. 

Jess would have called it a performance.

“Cotton’s no good,” Sam says. “The cellulose sucks up the moisture and holds it close to the body. Protein from hair with the lanolin covering it resists water. Takes a long, long time to get you soaked and keeps you warm. Cotton is rotten.”

Dean nods, looks a little surprised. “Do you work in textiles?” He asks.

Sam lets the highway curve away, along. They’re finally loosed from the inexorable stretch of Seattle-Tacoma, finally catching up into the part of the road that’s  _ properly _ the middle of nowhere. Loose the traffic and pick up some speed, some time. 

“Nah, it’s just stuff you pick up from living here. Lots of fisherman and outdoorsmen and stuff. Everyone spends crazy time outside and it rains all the time, so, you know, you learn. I’m...uh, I’m in college,” he says. “Library Science, I think. You?” 

“I’m a baker,” Dean answers. 

“Really?” Sam asks. “For like your own shop or-”

“A friend of mine has a place,” he says. “I had to quit the shop-- uh...I used to be a mechanic. But after mom got sick, I couldn’t make the hours work, so Benny helped me out.”

Sam tries to figure out the right thing to say, to pull the right words out of his mouth.

“You don’t have to feel bad,” Dean says, before Sam can find the right thing.

“Sorry?” Sam replies, feeling less than brilliant.

Dean looks away from him, all the way. Practically, presses his face against the window. “You don’t have to feel bad. You didn’t know her. You don’t have to feel like...you’re obligated to pity me.”

“I don’t feel obligated to pity you,” he answers. “This is new to me, too. I guess-- I just---” he sighs. “You’re going to meet my mom. Ellen Harvelle. And she’s great and I love her and I loved my dad and I love my brother and my sister. I guess I thought they were all the family I had. All the family I needed. I don’t-- it’s not a  _ loss _ because she was never someone who was really  _ mine _ . But I just...I don’t know how to feel yet.” He pauses for a moment. 

He looks over at Dean, and his eyes are a strange slew of colors. Green and gold and blue and brown. “My dad died a couple of years ago,” he says. “Had a stroke. It was...sudden. I know losing a parent is hard. I’m sorry for your loss and I’m sorry that we met this way.”

“And you don’t know if she’s a parent or a stranger,” Dean says.

“Well, yeah,” he replies. 

Neither of them says anything for the rest of the drive to the ferry terminal.

* * *

 

Dean hates flying and now he’s learned that he also hates ferries and he’s pretty sure he’s going to vomit when he climbs back into the truck that belongs to Sam’s boyfriend and drive from the ferry onto the island.

It’s dusk now, and the fog has begun to roll in. It’s somehow even colder and wetter than it was earlier in the day. The texture to the air begins to cling to him, makes him feel sticky. 

The drive out from the ferry terminal onto the island. Sam waves out of the window at someone. The truck bucks, up and down, on the hilly roads.

Signs, beside the road, telling them where they should go if there’s a tsunami. 

They drive down unlit roads, fenced in by tall evergreens.

“Sorry we’re getting in so late,” Sam says. “It doesn’t look so uh…”   
“Murdery?” Dean interjects.

Sam snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “In the daylight, it’s...quaint. The village is down that way, which is where I work. And my mom and my boyfriend. We live a bit of a ways up, though.”   
“And there’s a college here?” Dean asks.

“A commuter campus, yeah,” Sam answers. “Super small. I live at home because of some uh...some stuff.”

Dean nods, to himself. A rolling hill, tumbling down toward the beach, passes right by them. It’s surrounded by a low wooden fence. 

“Are those rabbits?” Deak asks. 

“Yeah,” Sam replies. “Someone released a huge colony of them on the island years ago. Good for the eagle population.”

They turn down a blind driveway and head down a long, winding drive. It eventually leads to a neighborhood, full of small houses, some of them with lit windows and cars in front of them. 

Everything looks a few years old, salt crusted and slightly faded. 

They turn into a drive and pull in front of a small, two story house. Wide windows with shutters and curtains. A front porch with chairs. 

Dean looks out at this house.

At this  _ life _ .

Sam pulls the key from the ignition. 

They sit in the cab silently for a soft moment, and then Sam says, “I’m gonna head in. Just-- whenever, whenever you’re ready, come on in.”

And he leaves, and he leaves Dean to sit and contemplate this moment.


End file.
